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Whirlpool Plant Closing Ranks No. 2 For Year

Editor’s Note: Each year, the Times Record newsroom staff votes on the Top 10 local stories of the year. The closing of the Fort Smith Whirlpool plant ranks as the No. 2 story of 2012.

By the time it actually happened on June 29, the closing of the Fort Smith Whirlpool Corp. plant had long been expected.

The workforce at the plant had fallen from the 4,600 it enjoyed in the mid-1990s to about 825, the result of several years of reductions. A major production line — that of side-by-side refrigerators — already had been transferred to a new plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, when the company announced the closing in October 2010. Still, the day was a somber one, as workers — some who had spent their adult lives working at the plant — clocked out for the last time and drove away.

The closing ended a half-century of operation at the plant which opened in 1962 under the ownership of the Norge Co. The Norge plant manufactured freezers, refrigerators and air conditioners. Whirlpool bought the facility in 1966 and expanded its operation over the years.

Impact of the closing was felt beyond the 1 million-square-foot factory complex in south Fort Smith, The closing also left scores of businesses throughout the region that supplied Whirlpool with the myriad services and materials that went into their products without one of their largest customers.

Loss of non-Whirlpool jobs related to the closing were put at more than 500. The closing occurred against a backdrop of similar declines locally and throughout the state.

The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith’s Center for Business Research and Economic Development in its most recent economic outlook report posted data showing Sebastian County manufacturing employment declining by just over 20 percent from 2007 to 2010, from almost 18,000 to just over 14,000. The rate is nearly twice that for all employment sectors.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock had projected the overall loss of 1,550 jobs — those at the plant and among local vendors who provide services to Whirlpool — and a labor income reduction of $61 million.

With the closing of the Whirlpool plant came acceleration of efforts put in place the year before to address the effects of the shutdown.

Paul Harvel with the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce earlier pushed for creation of a “fully engaged team” working toward the goal of replacing all the jobs lost when Whirlpool plant closed.

At a recent Chamber breakfast he said progress is being made toward that goal. While the Whirlpool property sits vacant and no new manufacturers have come forward with plans for a manufacturing facility on the scale of that operated by the appliance maker, operators of smaller and locally based businesses have stepped forward with demands for workers.

The Chamber organized a job fair, pairing local employers and prospective employees. Programs to train and re-educate laborers in skills and for positions that did not exist when they went to work have been developed at UAFS, ATU-Ozark and Carl Albert State University.

And while marketing the vacant Whirlpool property has taken a back seat to finding jobs for former Whirlpool workers, the sales effort continues. The Dallas-based Jones Lang LaSalle real estate services company was contracted to market the site.

In September, Infinity Asset Solutions, a Canadian company, entered negotiations with Whirlpool for the purchase. However, the deal apparently fell through in late November, with Whirlpool announcing the sale would not be happening.

Tim Allen, the Chamber’s chief operating officer, said earlier this month the sales strategy for the property remains to “keep showing it, make it available and put it in the mind of site consultants, so that when they have a prospect in mind, they have been there and seen it.”